Mike Taylor 🦕Aug 17, 2024
A blast from sixteen years ago: Aaron Swartz writing about how OCLC, which was started to help libraries, now controls and terrorizes them.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081218092812/http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/oclcscam
Stealing Your Library: The OCLC Powergrab (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

Show threadnavtis
@mike How do you feel about Anna's Archive using the entire OCLC catalogue database to index their 'collections'? ('OCLC catalogue datatabse' is already begging the question of whether OCLC have any moral right of ownership in the first place)
Aug 17, 2024 at 4:57pmWeb
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 17, 2024
@navtis I'm all for it. OCLC are exploitative bullies, and whatever it takes to liberate what they've stolen is fine by me.
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 17, 2024
@navtis Every time someone tries to make an open alternative to WorldCat, OCLC shuts them down with legal threats. So that leaves only the alternative of an ILlegal alternative.
Show threadnavtisAug 17, 2024
@mike I'm relieved, I was starting to think I was the only one to feel like that. Companies stealing the public domain, then public domain supporters saying 'ah, but WE have to follow the law'.
Show threadMike Taylor 🦕Aug 17, 2024
@navtis Yes, quite. What's legal does not map one-to-one with what's right.